Tag Archive: CA prisoner hunger strike

1) Here is the political prisoner birthday poster for September. As always, please post this poster publicly and/or use it to start a card writing night of your own.

Some News And Updates:

2) The campaign to have Earth Liberation Front prisoner Marie Mason moved from her special isolation unit is underway! Please write a letter today. You can download the “Move Marie” here: trifold color brochure The text version and a sample letter are available here.

3) Brother Abdullah is in debilitating pain and unable to walk without assistance, due to an acute case of sciatica. Abdullah has suffered in this state for over two weeks and has, to no avail, submitted to all prison procedures, which are required in order to get medical attention, namely the “sick-call process.” (more…)

California prisoner hungers strike advocates and supporters continue their efforts to compel state decision makers to negotiate with hunger strikers as they endure their 52nd day without food. Meanwhile legal observers at Corcoran State Prison say that the 70 people are still on strike at that facility are facing harsh relation by prison officials including the denial of medical care—even for those coming off strike—and the confiscation of personal property. At Pelican Bay, the four main representatives of the Short Corridor Collective—the interracial group in that facility’s Security Housing Unit (SHU) that initially encouraged their fellow prisoners to take up the peaceful protest—have been totally isolated in a single cell block in the prison’s stand-alone Administrative Segregation Unit. Late last week 51 prisoners being held in the same area were summarily and forcibly removed to other prisons. Meanwhile the CDCR’s own numbers show a steady uptick in strike participation over the past several days. (more…)

In this Aug. 17, 2011 file photo, a pair of inmates are seen in their cell in the Secure Housing Unit at the Pelican Bay State Prison near Crescent City, Calif. California prison officials with the backing of a federal health care receiver are seeking court permission to force-feed inmates who have been participating in a hunger strike that is entering its seventh week.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A federal judge approved a request from California and federal officials on Monday to force-feed inmates if necessary as a statewide prison hunger strike entered its seventh week.

Officials say they fear for the welfare of nearly 70 inmates who have refused all prison-issued meals since the strike began July 8 over the holding of gang leaders and other violent inmates in solitary confinement that can last for decades.

They are among nearly 130 inmates in six prisons who were refusing meals. When the strike began it included nearly 30,000 of the 133,000 inmates in California prisons.

Prison policy is to let inmates starve to death if they have signed legally binding do-not-resuscitate (DNR) requests. But state corrections officials and a federal receiver who controls inmate medical care received blanket authority from U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson of San Francisco to feed inmates who may be in failing health. The order includes those who recently signed requests that they not be revived. (more…)

I hope this letter finds you doing well. This is just a small note to let you know I’m still alive. But on Friday morning at around 12:30 a.m., they found me on the floor unresponsive and a little blue-ish purple.

From what the guys here say, the guards opened the door, I fell out and they jumped on me with a shield, cuffed me and took me out. Then dropped me at the first tier cause their hands slipped, from what they told me. What happened? Well, I remember waking up with a start, shivering, my heart racing and like someone was squeezing my back and that’s it.

The nurses said kidney failure – that I was so dehydrated that my kidneys shut down and I was blue-ish purple ‘cause I almost froze to death. Hypothermia? Is that how you spell it? Either way, the lack of food caught up to me and so did the water.

They put me on IV and warmed up my body with blankets and sent me on my way back to my cell. By 4 a.m. I was back. Only at S.Q. (more…)

Today marks the 38th day that Governor Brown and the California Department of Corrections have sat and watched as hundreds of Californians continue to starve under inhumane conditions in our prisons in an effort to make the state recognize their humanity. This has been a very long and drawn out battle involving decades of litigation, multiple hunger strikes, and many promises by the CDCR that it is finally “doing the right thing” all while vehemently denying that there are serious problems within the state prison system.

California’s prison system is undisputedly in a disastrous state of crisis. That Governor Brown has fought tooth and nail against correcting the crisis – even asking the United States Supreme Court to approve his non-compliance with the Court’s order to fix the prison system so that it no longer violates the US Constitution – is telling. California’s prison system has become a rogue beast devouring billions of dollars in state resources, destroying the lives of the people it has been entrusted to rehabilitate and their families, and continuing to operate in a way that endangers the safety and well-being of both prisoners and the public. It’s time for California to really engage in an honest effort to do the right thing. (more…)

San Cristóbal de Las Casas, July 30, 2013 – From the United States, the heart of the empire that imposes its laws on the entire planet, thousands of voices of the most scorned and forgotten people are now being raised to show millions of men and women what dignity really is.

The 30,000 prisoners who have launched a hunger strike in the prisons of California in the United States are our brothers and sisters. All these men and women who refuse to be silent, who are right to rebel, who defend their dignity by defying a powerful government to which the European governments have bowed down deserve the respect and admiration of the whole world.

The United States is a country where freedom is reserved for the rich and well-to-do classes, big businessmen, financiers and the political class. They are free to earn as much money as possible through the business of war and prison after having caused people to become obsessed with the danger of terrorism and criminality. (more…)

Seven activists locked down at the State Building on Aug, 5th, the 29th day of a California prisoner hunger strike. More than 30,000 prisoners are on hunger strike with 5 core demands.

After locking themselves to the main entrance of the Elihu M. Harris State Building in downtown Oakland for several hours, protesters moved inside the building, where they were arrested. Protesters said their action was in support of prisoners on strike throughout California and demanded that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and Governor Brown enter into direct negotiations with strikers. “Solitary confinement is widely and internationally recognized as torture,” Said the prostesters. “The hunger strikers and their family members are making a powerful and inspiring stand for dignity in the face of this inhumane treatment. We stand with them. Governor Brown and the CDCR, negotiate immediately to meet their five demands.” (more…)

1) Here is the political prisoner birthday poster for August. As always, please post this poster publicly and/or use it to start a card writing night of your own. This month’s poster is much less avant garde than last month’s. Sorry.

Some News And Updates:

2) Sentencing for nine NC Latin Kings and an associate tried as part of a criminal racketeering enterprise has been scheduled for the mid-August. Folks will be packing the court room for Jorge Cornell and his brother Russell Kilfoil on August 14th. More details to come. More information on the sentencing here. (more…)

“Man Down!” That’s the cry prisoners shout to the guards when a man needs immediate medical attention. The guards at Corcoran State Prison did not respond to the cry, and hunger striker Billy ‘Guero’ Sell died on July 22, 2013.

The Corcoran prison officials allege that Billy Sell committed suicide. Prisoners tell a very different story…

“Man Down!” shouted hunger strikers to the guards in San Quentin’s notorious prison within a prison, the solitary confinement Adjustment Center on Death Row. Four of the hunger strikers were not drinking water, as well as
refusing all food. (more…)

We have just received word that two prisoners in solitary confinement, on Unit 1 at Central Prison in Raleigh, have started a hunger strike in solidarity with the thousands of striking prisoners on the West Coast.

Their strike began on the 16th; the mass hunger and work strikes in California began on July 8th and have spread to facilities in Oregon and Washington state. This strike appears to be even larger, involving as many as 30,000 prisoners, than a similar protest in fall 2011. It was initiated by a small collective of prisoners in solitary at Pelican Bay State Prison. More information can be found here.